we are not gentle (but we can pretend)
by arabellagaleotti
Summary: Maria Stark time-travels from 1983 to 2012. The team learns she was not the pretty little thing history remembers her as, she was a typhoon wrapped in skin, a storm. Tony was raised by that storm, and they see that too.


Fury calls them all to an impromptu meeting.

Tony groans, slouched in his chair. Ever present, a tablet falls to his lap. "Why are we here, Fury? Is Loki back? Because I am not dealing with that again," he snarks.

Nick sighs, "no, Stark, Loki is not back." Then, to the rest of the team, "you have been called here for a different reason."

"Yesterday morning, SHIELD picked up a strange signal coming from Long Island. When we investigated, we picked up a...time traveller."

Tony's eyes snap up, "you're kidding? Oh, dear god, please tell me you're not kidding!"

Fury grits his jaw, "I'm not kidding."

"How? What? I — that isn't possible!"

"Apparently, it is," Fury drawls, "and I thought you'd be the first to say so, considering your father did it."

Tony blinks "My...No. Is — Is he here?"

"Who? Your father?"

"Yes. Is he here?"

"No, I'm afraid not," fury says.

Tony releases a breath, whispering something under his breath. Then, louder, he says, "Who is it?"

"Your mother," Fury says briskly, sweeping out an arm. The team stiffens, none have ever heard much about Tony's childhood, and nothing about his mother.

The door opens, and she's standing there, right out of the pictures Steve had found on the internet. The guards flanking her step back as she moves into the room. She's wearing a floral dress that swirls around her legs, her dark hair is curled around her face, a throwback to the fifties, and her lipstick looks like she borrowed it off Peggy Carter herself.

Tony's eyes widen and recognition and he's out of his seat as fast as Thor's lighting. Maria took a half-step back down as Tony lands on his knees, as if praying to her. He whispers, "mama," with a sort of breathless exhilaration. Maria's eyes glint in recognition, and she bends down instantly, the two taking up a pose naturally. She wraps his arms around him and he stifles a sob in her shoulder.

The team sits in quiet, mostly shocked at this turn of events, but understanding that this is not to be trifled with, that this is bigger than them, and either mother or son with strike them down if they do anything to ruin the moment.

"Antonio," she murmured, "Antonio, how big you've grown, mi caro."

He laughs, roughed by tears, "it's been thirty odd years, mama."

"Si, but not for me."

There is silence for a moment.

"Fury briefed me," she told him.

"Iron-Man?"

"Hmm," she confirmed, "among other things."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one, my death. Second, your...deaths, and well, the playboy part of 'billionaire-playboy-philanthropist'."

"Ah." Tony says finally. "Are you disappointed?"

"No," she said hushedly, "I mean, you're not exactly a choirboy in my time."

"Yes, but making out with Lindy Zhao behind the church is different from doing cocaine off a super-model's thighs."

Maria nodded, "it certainly is."

Tony steps back from his mother's embrace. The entire room looks at him in question — Maria included. He spreads his arms wide at Maria; an invitation, a dare, and a thousand other things, just like Tony Stark.

"You know what to do," and apparently she does because she grins a grin she must have gotten from Howard (or maybe Howard got from her), and suddenly she was holding a handful of knives, sharp and silver in her grasp. Fury gapes, obviously they had searched her and come up blank. Maria cast a mischievous look towards the director, seemingly apologising with a flutter of her eyelashes.

She flicked her wrist and a blur of silver is streaking towards Tony, who dodges easily.

"Mama, I'm not ten, you can actually try to hit me," he teases. The team's faces look look identical to Fury's.

She laughed, and threw several in rapid succession. Tony seems to slip into a second skin — almost like Iron-Man but lithe, agile, nimble with a kind of loose-limbed flexibility that was not there before. This is more alive than they have ever seen him, his features have not changed, his eyes are the same color but there is something about him, something wild, something free, something that calls from some deep place inside him, saying I am home.

He moves like water, fluid and graceful. Steve swears he blows a kiss at him as a smear of silver sails under his arm, embedding in the wall with a thud. Even Natasha looks impressed.

Maria seemed to up her game, circling around and picking up the knives she had already used, throwing with more intensity, faster. Tony laughs, and the team stiffens in confusion. When Tony laughs, it is a murmur, a chuckle, not this free-spirited, spiralling guffaw right out of a child's mouth.

Tony is dodging a particularly hard set when one clips his ear. He swears, holding a hand to the blood already flowing.

"You're rusty," she chided, a heavy Italian lilt accenting her words.

"Mama," he reaches to hold his ear, bleeding a hot stream down the side of his face, "I'm hurt, literally."

"Yes. Because you are weak," she teased, holding in her smile, but he can still see it, in her fingers and how they flex, in her eyes and how they crinkle at the corners.

He laughs, taking it as a joke, (which it is). "Of course I am weak, you are not here to make me strong."

She quirked her mouth in a sort of smirk, identical to the one he wears so often. Natasha zeroes in on the motion as Maria found a handkerchief from somewhere on her person (Fury, once again, looks peeved) and started to dab at his ear. Silence reigns as the two sit, a perfect parallel to his childhood after he had skinned his knee or gotten a scratch, and she had fixed his wounds as they sat in silence.

The team seems to be getting uncomfortable, brains racing to catch up with so much new information.

Finally, Steve speaks. "Uh, Mrs. Stark?" he asks, Maria turned her head to look at him, and her jaw gritted. Maria did not like to be surprised, and she was surprised now, seeing the man her husband spent more time on than their marriage, the man long-dead in ice.

"Captain," she returned evenly, hiding her confusion well. Tony can see it though, he can see right into her mind, sometimes. When he was young, it sometime scared him, the fire he saw there. It does not anymore, now he has the same fire.

Fury steps in. "Cap here was recovered in 2011 from the arctic. His plane went down in 1945, and remained so until we recovered him. He froze, entering a cryogenic state, delaying any ageing and slowing his heartbeat, metabolism and any other functions. In simple terms, he went to sleep and woke up seventy years later."

Maria raised her eyebrows, "I did not need the simple terms, director."

Tony hides his grin in the lines of his face, in the goatee he wears so famously. Maria hid hers in a doe-eyed expression that had won so many hearts already, wide and innocent.

Fury swallows, "right. Uh, we've told you about the Avengers, about iron-man —" Maria turned to Anthony and he can tell, in the way her eyelashes fluttered when she blinked, that she was proud. Inside,he preens, (and on the outside too) "— but, we haven't gone into detail about its members," Fury continues, none the wiser.

"You know about Cap," he nods at Steve, an indication to talk.

"Hello, Mrs. Stark," he greets, eyes quick over her. "I, uh, knew Howard —"

Maria's dry voice cut in, "yes, I know. He spent more time looking for you than in the house."

Tony pokes her in the side, a reminder to play nice.

"Hush, bambino, I'll be gentle," she smiled, whispering, but to Tony it looks more like a baring of teeth.

"Mama," he warns in a low tone, "you are not gentle."

She just looked at him, as if peering into his soul, and when she was done, she just smiled that brilliant, magazine-cover, gala smile at him and said wickedly, "yes, but I can pretend."

Then she turned back to Steve, their entire whispered conversation gone in the flash of an instant. Natasha looks like she might have heard them, and Steve definitely has, with the super-soldier serum and the pink blush on his cheeks — although that might be a effect of Maria's first comment.

She made the facial equivalent of 'go on', and so he does. "He helped with Project: Rebirth, and...well, I owe my life to him," he says honestly, "he was a great friend."

Maria was wearing that face, the one that says 'oh, so very interesting' but meant, 'I'm bored out of my mind and I don't care'. She only used it for press functions and when talking to Howard's frie— investors.

"Oh?" She drawled, and Steve keeps talking, about the war and Howard, and Tony's already heard it a thousand times but he still knows it's rude not to listen but honestly, he doesn't give a single fuck right now.

He leans back against the wall, and Maria scrunched the blood-soaked handkerchief in her hand, looking at it like it holds the secrets to the universe.

"42," Tony whispers, and Maria looked up. Steve's still talking, a bit stiltedly now, recognising the conversation they're having.

She laughed, and the handkerchief vanished with a flick of her wrist, the only trace of it the blood left under her nails and drying in his ear. She apologised with one long finger tracing his cut, already scabbed over.

Tony doesn't need to say anything back, but it doesn't matter, because Fury is already talking. "This is Dr. Bruce banner, aka he Hulk." Bruce ducks his curly head, looking bashful and a little embarrassed at the use of 'the Hulk'.

Now Maria actually looked interested. "Oh? Now, Dr. Banner, tell me about that," she said, a voice like honey, sickly sweet, the one she used to get funding for the Maria Stark foundation. Anthony closes his eyes and leans back, a horrible, gross feeling in his stomach, like maggots.

"I'm a scientist. I used to work in gamma radiation, and you could say there was….an accident. Now, as a defense mechanism or when I'm angry, I...turn into the Hulk."

"Fascinating," she breathed, eyes like lighting over him. "Would such an accident replicate the same results, if done again?"

He swallows, "likely not. Internalized trauma from child abuse is what I believe had a factor in the making of the Hulk. I'm not sure what would happen to any other person."

Maria straightened at the mention of child abuse, her face going stone cold, "name?" she whispered to Tony.

He hesitates, "mama."

"Name," she insisted, her tone bordering on dangerous, her eyes alight.

Tony relents, "Brian Banner." He knows that she will carry that name in her heart until she can ruin him — one way or another. Maria was a fickle creature, that's why Howard liked her, she was the next elusive thing to catch. Then, he caught her and she was caged and hung like the rest of his achievements, doctorates and newspaper clippers framed on the wall. Still, she was not so hard with everyone. If she took a liking to you, then you would find her favors a very good place to be. Tony has no doubts that if (when) she gets back, Brian Banner will have hell rain down upon him.

She smiled winningly, then, turning back to Bruce, "you are a very brave man, Dr. Banner."

"Now, Hawkeye and Black Widow, Natasha and Clint, respectively." Clint leans back, and Natasha only reclines her head, that fierce look on her face.

Maria looked up at the mention of Natasha's name. "Oh," she said, eyes like diamonds, hard and flinty and staring the spy down. "I thought so before, but…"

Fury looks pretty freaked out, and Natasha looks unnerved by her standards, (a tightness around her eyes, the gritting off her jaw.)

"What?" Tony asks for them.

"You're older now, but I can see it." Natasha blinks, her only tell. "You are Natalia Romanova, born in Russia, and raised in the Red Room?"

Natasha stiffens, "how do you know that?"

Maria laughed, "cara, I am married to the man who founded the largest intelligence operation in the world. I have access to certain things, and you," she pointed a finger, "are one of those."

Natasha blinks, "I….when are you from?"

"1983. Anthony is thirteen. SHIELD has discovered the Red Room, a dangerous training program, nicknamed so because of the amount of blood spread. 24 girls are recruited, but by the end of training, only a few typically remain. The girls learn a multitude of skills, including ballet, fight tactics and other skills that would be useful in the intelligence community. After graduation, many 'black widows' work freelance or for government intelligence agencies, like SHIELD. Most though, work for Russia or the KGB. What makes Natalia Romanova special, instead of a few girls graduating with her, she was the only one. Whether a new change in training or a one-off, it remains a special case. It is yet to be determined if Natalia's ruthlessness or skill had any hand in such a fate. Natalia was born—" Maria recited, eyes hazy and aimed to the left, recalling memory.

"That's enough," Fury cuts in.

Maria smiled like a sickles blade, sharp and silver. "Sorry, director," she lilted, not looking at all sorry. Tony hides a grin behind his hand, this one too big to be magicked away and Steve's eyes connect them, thinking how alike they are, now he can see it. Before, he was drawing comparisons between Howard and Tony, not Maria and Tony. How both hate to be treated like they're stupid — Maria sniping back after Fury, Tony and his snark when someone doubts him. How they have that same look on their face when someone treats them badly — bold, brass, and filled with fire. Now it's all he can see, their movements echoing each other's like a mirror, it's so perfect.

"Sadly, Thor's off planet right now," Fury says, moving on hurriedly, "so you can't meet him."

Tony leans in, "a Norse god."

Maria turned to him with a grin from his childhood, "of lightning?" he nods, and she grinned wider, "you remember the stories, Anthony?"

He shrinks back, because he's never told anyone about the stories. Not one person about his mother in his room, reading Greek and Roman myths, recanting fairytales and old Norse legends, and when she ran out, she just made more, twisting the words into fiction worthy of Mount Olympus.

The stories are a well-kept secret, known only by her and him and a few maids who eavesdropped outside the door every night, listening to no-longer-trophy-wife-Maria spin tales like the air she breathed, a playwright of magnificent calibre. Those maids are old now, and Maria's already dead (well, she was?), and it's not like Tony is going to spill, but now she's gone and told a room full of spies and people who are already curious, and it's like she's thrown vodka in the fireplace like when father—

Her hand wasaround his wrist, gripping hard. He breathes.

"I think it's time to go," he announces, pushing off the wall. He cannot stay here any longer, he is going to explode. Maria saw and follows suit. "Mama's met everyone, and honestly, there's nothing else, so we're gonna go."

"Wait, Stark —" Fury calls. Tony does not stop, but Maria smiled over her shoulder, a challenge and an invite to follow, if he so dares.

He doesn't, and they slide into Tony's Audi idling outside without a hitch. It turns out, two Stark's glaring their best are very formidable, and any guards or agents they encounter steer clear.

"Hey, Boss —" Happy starts to say, about to pull into traffic when he catches sight of Maria in the backseat. "Woah, you got Pepper at home," (well, in Shanghai,) "you know that?"

"I'm not gonna cheat on Pepper, Happy," Tony rolls his eyes.

"Pepper?" Maria asked, "you settled down?"

"gesù, mamma, sembri troppo eccitato," Tony grumbles. Jesus, mama, you sound far too excited

"Sì, voglio i nipoti," she replied. Yes, I want grandchildren.

"Oh mio dio, penso che sto avendo un attacco di cuore," he says dramatically. Oh my god, I think I'm having a heart attack.

"Non stai diventando più giovane, lo sai," You're not getting any younger, you know.

Tony chokes. "Happy — Happy!"

"Boss, you alright?" Happy asks, concerned.

"Kill me," he pants, "kill me right now."

"Boss?" Happy asks, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

"She — urgh," Tony makes a sound like retching.

Happy looks at Maria, "is he alright, miss?"

"Yes," she replied, "fine, just being dramatic."

"What'd you say to him?"

"That he's not getting any younger, and that I want grandchildren."

Happy slams on the breaks, "what?!" he demands.

"Happy! What the fuck!? Drive!" Tony yells, clutching the seatbelt.

Maria leaned forward, "you better, caro, we don't want to have an accident." (and hell, if that doesn't give Tony flashbacks, he doesn't know what will.)

Ten minutes later, Tony is mostly (fully) recovered, and Maria had explained the situation to Happy.

"So you're telling me that this is Maria Stark, in the flesh, in my backseat?"

"In my backseat," Tony drawls the same time as Maria said, "yes."

He turns, stand-still New York traffic ahead of him, reaches out a hand and then goes, "well, it's an honor, Mrs. Stark."

She laughed and shook his hand back, "and I you, Mr….Happy?"

"Hogan," he corrects.

"Right, well, Mr. Hogan, I thank you very much for taking care of my son all these years."

He shrugs, "I haven't done that good of a job, remember the Apogee award?" the last part is aimed at Tony, who rolls his eyes, "Rhodey is still mad about that."

Maria cocked her head inquisitively, "what Apogee award?"

Later, when Happy is humming to to the radio and they are moving again, Tony leans over on the smooth leather.

"I have a piano," he says quietly and Maria looked away from the window, her eyes settling on Tony with a sort of heaviness. "The same one from Malibu."

"Suono bello?" Lovely sound. And it is. He used to spend entire afternoons next to her, sitting on the red-velvet piano bench, letting her quick hands guide his clumsy ones, her voice the vocal representation of those moments between sleep and reality where everything is as rosy as a sunset and just as soft.

"Yeah," he croaks out, voice full with welled-up emotion that prickles at the edge of his eyes. They roll up outside Stark Tower (now Avengers). Maria looked out the window as Tony straightens his tie in the rear vision mirror. "'A' for the Avengers?" she asked.

"Used to be 'STARK'" he tells her.

She snorted, "god, that's ostentatious."

He shrugs, "probably. Now, keep your head down. We don't want the press think that you're a one night stand...or y'know, Maria Stark."

"Please," Maria breezed, "I'm far too classy for you."

Maria stepped out into the outside world before he can reply. Happy turns, grinning at Tony.

"I like your mother," he says.

Tony blinks, a little offended, a little shocked, a lot mortified.

He chases her inside, ignoring Happy's laugh. Thankfully, as far as he sees, nobody sees them except from a few receptionists who barley glance up. (not so)Surprisingly, Tony Stark brings over strange women all the time, more surprisingly, he does not sleep with them.

They fall into step instantly, without even thinking about it, mother and son. Tony leads her to the elevator, and when JARVIS asks, "what floor, sir?"

Maria squeaked, jumping a little.

"Sorry, mama," Tony laughs. "This is JARVIS, he's an AI. He controls all of the tower, and acts as my personal assistant."

"JARVIS?" Maria said, eyes turning towards him, big, wide half moons.

"Yeah," he whispers, "after Jarv."

She smiled a watery smile and hugged him, "oh baby."

"I'm thirteen, so he died last year?" Tony murmurs into her hair. She smelt like the perfume of his childhood, orange blossom and the heady scent of wine, dark and flowery.

"Yeah," she whispered into his neck. He inhales deeply, holding onto the scent he hasn't smelt since he was 21. He never could recreate it, or find it again, and he spent many drunk nights in his lab, angry at it all, or at the house he grew up in, searching for an empty bottle, a label, something.

The doors ding open and they enter his floor of Avengers tower. He guides them past his bedroom — which Maria peeked inside, seeing a picture of Pepper and Tony that elicited a delighted squeal; 'oh she's gorgeous, Tony!' — and down the hall, to a locked room that not even Pepper has ever stepped foot in.

Everyone has wondered, coming up with various theories as to what's inside — Clint has fifty bucks on the murdered skull of a pirate, god knows why, and Natasha thinks he has all his weapons locked up, Steve thinks it's rude to speculate, as does Bruce, and finally, Thor, who has no idea about anything — but none have come even close. Many attempts have been made to get inside, but even Nat's lock-picking skills have failed. JARVIS kicked them out after an hour anyway.

Tony nods at JARVIS, who unlocks the door. Inside is a gleaming grand piano, varnished and made with dark wood. The ivory keys glister white, flawless. Maria let out a hushed sound, eyes fixed on the musical instrument. Her fingers, feather light, traced along the wood, coming to a stop at the words engraved there, suono bello. Maria had Jarvis (the original) carve it there. He had spent the better part of the day, penning careful movements, and even more of it was heeding to an unruly toddler bouncing around him as he worked.

Tony takes his place at the piano bench, where nobody apart from the two in the room have ever sat, and Maria leaned against the dark, glossy wood. Tony starts to play, the song is jaunty and happy.

Maria grinned happily, recognising it, "Tu vuò fa' l'Americano, eh? Very ironic of you."

"You know me, mama," he says, fingers dancing over keys, "I love the American dream."

She raises her eyebrows at him and starts to sing. "Porte 'de cazane cu nu stemma arreto…"

They sing the song joyfully, Anthony leaning forward as he plays, singing background. Even now, they are a well-oiled machine.

"...Whisky and soda e rocchenroll,

Whisky and soda e rocchenroll,

Whisky and soda e rockenroll!' they finish, Anthony grinning as he plays the final keys.

"You're not so bad. Have you been practicing?" Maria teased.

"Ah, prodigy, remember?" Tony lilts back.

Maria looked saddened suddenly, glancing down, "yes, my little genio."

"Hey, how about this one…"

He starts to play, and this time the melody bleeding from his finger is breathtakingly beautiful, filled with a kind of melancholy that Tony Stark has certainly never expressed before, (to the public's knowledge). Maria closed her eyes and leans into the symphony, opening her mouth and singing like a caged bird, except this bird is not a nice little thing sitting in it's gilded cage, it's fierce, clawing, and will take any chance for escape, if it can.

She had a magnificent voice, lauded from galas and balls to private entertainment. Her voice had helped many of Howard's deals slide into fruition, and it's obvious why. Her voice let out so much emotion, it's almost like she's not singing at all, just channelling it deep from her soul.

And then her voice lets up and Tony's begins. It's smooth and rich and obviously hasn't been used in many years, judging by the creak like a old door in an empty room. He plays no heed, singing anyway, leaning forward, fingers still playing. Maria grinned like silver, bright and alive. They look perfect, Anthony in the peace he only gets in rare-caught sleep. Maria was ripped right out of the society pages of 1974, missing only a designer gown and jewels. She was still radiant, a sun to everyone else's star, eclipsing anyone who comes close.

Anthony rolls his eyes and looks back down at the keys, "you know, I never did get to show you this…?"

"Well, then you better now," Maria laughed, lips pursed.

The song changes. The notes fall downwards, in a sudden plunge, dancing with adrenaline, they blaze across the sky like Iron-Man, weaving like a river, then sound like pattering rain. It is complex and beautiful and anyone watching would have tears in their eyes and breath caught in their throat.

This time Maria did not sing, only recline against the wood of the piano, listening in rapture.

"My little Mozart," Maria cooed when he's finished, "such a shame Howard would not let you pursue music. You would have made a fine player."

He ducks his head, "it does not matter now."

She surveyed him critically, silence stretching between them. Her lipstick shined in the light from the windows. "no," she said finally, "I suppose it does not."

"Do not, mama," he urges, catching onto her hand, "do not do that."

"Do what, Anthony?"

"Hate father," he whispers.

She smiled, but it is not kind, it is not soft and loving, it is venomous, it is toxic, it is a snake sinking it's fangs into the soft flesh of your hand. "I do not hate him," she said, eyes burning like the fires of hell, "I despise him."

"Then do not do that either," Anthony says, voice strong, body straight, eyes like iron with a spine like it too. "Not right now."

"Oh, if I could," she sighed, smile melting like chocolate, into something wistful, something nostalgic and loving of another time, a better time. Then she straightened and that look in her eyes disappears, there is still poison there, and it will still kill.

Maria swept away, a terrible force of nature, a hurricane, not in the way that you know she was coming, told by whipping winds and foreboding skies, but in the way you know she was there, in the destruction left in her path.

Never let it be said that she was gentle and kind like history remembers her, she was, of course, but she was wild first, an untamed animal Howard managed to wrangle, he managed to cut her claws and dull her teeth. She was now a typhoon wrapped in skin, in red lipstick and a pretty face, reined in by the words, trophy wife and the name Stark.

Anthony was born to that force of nature, he was born to a storm and he was raised by one too. Where there's a storm, there is a before, a middle, and an after, and he is all of them.

Before, a boy with eyes too big. With a mother that burns to the touch, and a father that douses her. There is trouble on the horizon, appearing like a storm-front, and he knows it, but you can't change the weather, just like you can't stop your fate.

Middle, a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist with a rakish grin and a nature far too similar to his mother's. The eye of the storm, the calm of it, where yeah, he kinda hates himself and tries to forget it in scotch and women but Stark Industries is doing okay and he feels okay... most of the time. When he wakes up with a gun in his hand, loaded and ready, or pills scattered on the bathroom counter and no memory of the night before he is glad he didn't do it.

After, still a genius, still a billionaire, still a playboy, still a philanthropist, but something else this time. Iron-Man. He has bled and hurt and lived like his mother, and he finds himself in an odd parody of her life. He is calm and cold and oddly silent, like a graveyard, your ears still ringing and your heart still pounding, the threat of the storm returning lingering.

He knows how to destroy, he knows how to rip through towns, he knows how to break. But he does not, (anymore, right now.) He sits, and he smiles, and when the new daybreak is showing over the horizon, he plays.

The team finds him like that, in an empty room, playing a empty tune on a piano that holds empty memories.

"Are you alright?" Bruce ventures, when Tony turns to look at them, it is with empty eyes.

"Of course," he says, and suddenly, Maria's touch is gone, the ever-present danger sense the back of your head gone, that prickling, omnipresent alarm system blaring 'get away, get away, get away!' disabled.

"Where's Maria?" Natasha asks, a sort of fear in her eyes, one not cultured easily. She knows that the man sitting in front of her is not who he was before that meeting. She doesn't know who he is now, or if he will come back, but she does know not to comment on it.

Tony laughs, keeps playing.

"She is where she is."

The answer to that? Well, Maria Stark left this earth (for the second time) just as quickly as she came. JARVIS claims not to know and the team does not push, and shockingly, neither does Fury. Perhaps it is not for mortal ears.

Tony does not speak of the incident, and the rest of the team follows suit, the words 'Maria', 'mother' and 'Stark' blacklisted even more harshly than before.

Pepper comes home from Shanghai to find the team oddly quiet and Tony in the one room not open to her, sitting on a piano bench.

"Are you okay?"

He looks up, jumping a little, "when have I not been okay, Pep?" he asks, flashing a dazzling grin that comes off lackluster even to him.

She raises his eyebrows, "do you really want me to answer that?"

He huffs out a weak chuckle. "Yeah, you better not. I'm okay, Pep, just...sit with me?"

"Okay," she ventures, making to sit on the bench. Tony stiffens, and she stops. "Is the bench okay?"

"No," he whispers sounding so utterly drained that Pepper goes and gets the chair from the office down the hall without a second thought.

So she ends up sitting in a massively oversized office chair she stole from Tony long ago, legs crossed, listening to Tony play.

He has a real aptitude for music, songs composing themselves as his hands settle over the keys. When he sings, Pepper sucks in a breath and holds it, afraid to exhale, to break this dream. He obviously loves it, he gets sucked in like he does in his lab and she wonders why he never became a musician.

When she asks, he just shrugs, "Stark Industries," he says, simply enough, like it solves everything.

Pepper changes tact, "where did you learn?" she half convinced it has to be The Juilliard School, taught by Mozart or something like that.

"Mama played, and she would sit with me, and..." he shrugs again, helplessly, "I guess I just picked it up."

Pepper laughs, because only Tony could be so brilliant at something from only 'picking it up'.

"Okay. Play another?"

"Sure, Pep," he agrees, fingers back on the keys.


End file.
